


in matters of flight

by kaberett



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Wheelchairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaberett/pseuds/kaberett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luton Airport is an atrocity Crowley had no hand in the creation of, and for that matter is an atrocity for which he wants none of the credit. In this respect, as in so many others, it bears an uncanny resemblence to Milton Keynes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in matters of flight

Luton Airport is an atrocity Crowley had no hand in the creation of, and for that matter is an atrocity for which he wants none of the credit. In this respect, as in so many others, it bears an uncanny resemblence to Milton Keynes.1

Heathrow Terminal 5, though! Now _there_ was something to be proud of. Sleek and shining and somehow - ineffably - soul-destroying: a temple, as it were, to overpriced perfume and undersized drinks and soothing sculptures that were anything but and any number of other small steps towards acquiring less a tarnish and more a subtle patina of the soul. And all of that achieved before the Great Baggage Fiasco was even a twinkle in his eye.

So when It Happened, his reaction was perhaps a little more churlish than called for.

It Happened, as these things so often do, on a Sunday. He had been sauntering carefree through the shopping strip, taking great delight in FOUR TOBLERONE NOW ONLY £35, when he spotted It: a non-regulations-compliant but definitively airport-provided wheelchair. It looked, he thought sourly, almost comfortable. It was self-propelled, with nary an attendant in sight, and Its occupant was browsing a bookshop in a leisurely fashion, rather than being rushed by gloomy out-of-the-way back routes from check-in to security to monorail to gate.

The dead giveaway, though, was that It was upholstered in tartan.

In cheerful BA blue and red.

***

AND VERILY THE HOUSEPLANTS DID TREMBLE BEFORE HIS WRATH.

***

Crowley finally tracked him down behind a copy of yesterday's Guardian in the British Library tea rooms. Aziraphale emerged ink-stained and lightly rumpled. "Ah, Crowley, dear boy," he said, "any ideas on this one? _Backer of good old coin_ , five letters."

This was summarily ignored. In point of fact, the crossword in question was crumpled underhand2 as Crowley loomed over the table. "Sssome things," he hissed, "were not meant to be... _meddled_ with."

* * *

1 Viz, the fact that it's awful doesn't stop him reporting it as a success.  
2 Perhaps lacking in drama, but no less effective than trampling underfoot.

**Author's Note:**

> For the interested, have [one cryptic crossword](http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25045).
> 
> Realisation struck at 6am in Hanoi, Vietnam, when I was indeed provided with a self-propelled tartan wheelchair. It could only have been the work of Aziraphale. (The same is true of Changi, Singapore, and its butterfly garden.)


End file.
